BMC takes Rs 7 cr gamble

Even as the civic body faces criticism over the quality of roads and the way it assigns road contracts, on Thursday, it proposed to hand over the construction of seven roads to a single private technology distributor, for which Rs 7 crore of taxpayers’ money will be spent.

The Brihanmumbai Munici-pal Corporation (BMC), which has been asked by the chief minister to try out modern technologies, wants to assign the contract to Carboncor, the sole distributor in India of a patented product, which is an emulsion of carbonaceous shale - a waste product of coal mining.

The BMC had shortlisted nine technologies on Tuesday and decided to test each of them on a 100-square metre patch of road. On Thursday, it decided to allot seven roads to Carboncor in its Rs 350-crore tender, which comes up in around a month’s time, even before the tests began.

The state-appointed Standing Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) has okayed this technology, but not for new roads.

Aseem Gupta, additional municipal commissioner (roads), said there are enough safeguards. “Even if the technology fails, the BMC won’t make losses,” he said.